Returning home in November Marlborough found difficulties almost as great as he had left behind him in Flanders. There were quarrels in the Cabinet, already foreboding the time when the Queen and the people should turn against him. The Court of France was reverting to its old methods and endeavouring to divide England by providing the Pretender with a force for invasion. Again the hardships of the campaign in Flanders and the defeat of Almanza had not only created discontent, but had enormously increased the demand for recruits. The evil work of the Dutch deputies and the incorrigible selfishness and jealousy of the Empire had already prolonged the war beyond the limit assigned by the short patience of the English people.
Happily Parliament was for the present still loyal to the war, and voted not only the usual supplies but money for an additional ten thousand men. Five new battalions[1] were raised, and three more of the old establishment were detailed for service in Flanders.[2] But far more satisfactory was the fact that in 1708 all regiments took the field with new colours, bearing the cross of St. Andrew blended with that of St. George, pursuant to the first article of the Treaty of Union, passed in the previous year, between England and Scotland.
1708. The early spring of 1708 was wasted by the French in a futile endeavour to set the Pretender afoot in Scotland with a French force at his back; nor was
Mar. 29./April 9. it until the 9th of April that Marlborough sailed for the Hague, where Eugene was already awaiting him. There the two agreed that the Duke should as usual
